Gabrielle Giffords’ successor battles memory of bloodshed

TUCSON, Ariz. — The flashbacks and nightmares, an endless replay in his mind of those 30 seconds of terror, have largely receded. He insists he’s not anxious at large gatherings with constituents — though his wife, he admits, might feel differently. Loud noises don’t startle him anymore, and he can ride in a car without gripping the overhead bar.

Life will never return to “normal” for Ron Barber, who succeeded Gabrielle Giffords in Congress after they were nearly killed in the shooting rampage three years ago that stunned the nation.

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But the trauma has faded, for Barber and the constituents of Arizona’s 2nd District. Now the 68-year-old Democrat is waging a campaign for Giffords’ legacy — a bid, in effect, to dissuade voters from moving on from the Giffords era, and implicitly the shooting, entirely. He is up against a star Republican recruit, groundbreaking Air Force fighter pilot Martha McSally. She’s pitching herself as the true heir apparent to Giffords — a characterization that rankles Giffords and is prodding her to inject herself heavily into the race.

The question is whether voters really are ready to move on. Barber nearly lost to McSally in 2012, and Democrats acknowledge it will be hard to keep the seat in a GOP-leaning year.

After the shooting, “it was a raw feeling for people. There was a need for stability and continuity and that overshadowed everything,” said Jonathan Paton, a Republican former state senator who ran unsuccessfully for the GOP nomination to face Giffords in 2010. But “the emotions aren’t what they were. And I think people are more or less asking, ‘Do we like Barber or not?’”

‘Congress on Your Corner’

One of Barber’s first decisions after he was elected in 2012 was to continue Giffords’ tradition of Congress on Your Corner events. His constituents, he decided, deserve access to their congressman. He’s done about a dozen of them, though none at the Tucson Safeway where the rampage occurred.

On a recent Saturday morning, about 60 people showed up to his latest event outside a YMCA, lining up in 95-degree heat to bend the congressman’s ear about issues ranging from Obamacare to veterans’ benefits.

Barber projected a calm demeanor, but the tension was palpable. Unlike at the fatal 2011 event, there were uniformed police officers — two of them. One stood about 30 feet away from the front of the line, where Barber greeted people; the other was positioned outside the parking lot, monitoring the gathering from a different angle. Every 30 minutes or so, Mark Kimble, a Barber spokesman who worked for Giffords and was at the shooting, approached one of the officers and whispered into his ear.

Unbeknownst to attendees, two plainclothes officers also made their way through the crowd, one wearing a basketball jersey. The four officers had their eyes on everything, including two camera-wielding Republican trackers standing 25 feet from the congressman, recording his every movement.

“He has to have a lot of courage,” Steve Nash, an engineer, said of Barber after their brief exchange. “The whole time I’m waiting there I’m wondering if I’m going to get hit.”

The white-haired Barber comes across as a gentle grandfather. He is quick to offer a hug to constituents — “I’m a hugger,” he said in an interview — and sympathized with a veteran upset over his federal benefits. “I totally understand. Veterans are my top priority,” Barber said to the man, who towered over him. “We haven’t done right by veterans.”

Barber admits he scans the crowd at these events a little more than he used to and is more aware of his surroundings.

“I really don’t have any anxiety,” he said. “I can’t speak for my family. But I don’t.”

The YMCA event wrapped up in two hours. When it was over, Barber walked up to each of the officers and thanked them.

‘Ron. You.’

The sequence of events on Jan. 8, 2011, is now all too familiar. Jared Lee Loughner, a deranged 22-year-old gunman, appeared at a Congress on Your Corner event, shot Giffords in the head at point-blank range, then turned his weapon on others waiting to see her. Barber was hit a few moments after Giffords, with bullets piercing his left cheek and groin. Six people, including Gabe Zimmerman, a young aide to Giffords, and John Roll, a federal judge, died; 13 others, including Giffords and Barber, were wounded.